Augusto Cury backs Flavio Bolsonaro in Brazil runoff

Brazilian senator Flavio Bolsonaro has gained the endorsement of Augusto Cury, who finished third in the first round of the presidential election, ahead of the October 25 runoff against incumbent President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Cury announced his decision in a social-media video shared by Bolsonaro, according to The Straits Times.¹

Third-place candidate enters runoff campaign

Cury received 2.89% of valid votes in the first round, according to The Straits Times. Valid votes exclude blank and null ballots. TASS reported that he won 3,448,569 votes, while the Superior Electoral Court’s counted-vote results placed him third among the candidates.¹²

Cury, an Avante candidate described as an author-psychiatrist, had sought to avoid alignment with either the left or the right during his campaign, according to The Straits Times. His campaign used the phrase “Centered on what matters”.¹

Bolsonaro had also secured the support of Ronaldo Caiado, a former Goias governor who received 2.18% in the first round, The Straits Times reported. Renan Santos, who placed fourth with 2.24%, said he would not endorse either Bolsonaro or Lula.¹²

First-round result and polling

The Superior Electoral Court released results after all votes had been counted, TASS reported. According to the account, Bolsonaro won 56,104,503 ballots, representing 47.03%, compared with Lula's 53,879,538 ballots and 45.16%. The reported 1.87-percentage-point gap is disputed in the dossier, though both sources reported Bolsonaro ahead after the first round.²¹

TASS reported that Lula outperformed Bolsonaro in 39 of Sao Paulo’s 645 municipalities. The same account said the other 10 candidates together took 7.81% of valid votes; Ronaldo Caiado received 2,605,148 votes and Romeu Zema 326,488.²

The Straits Times reported that Datafolha's initial post-first-round survey put Bolsonaro on 49% and Lula on 45% for a hypothetical October 25 runoff. The survey of 2,520 people was conducted in person from October 6 to 7. Its margin of error was plus or minus two percentage points, meaning the reported result was a technical tie; 5% said they would cast blank ballots and 1% were undecided.¹

According to The Straits Times, Flavio Bolsonaro is former President Jair Bolsonaro's oldest child. The runoff will decide the contest between the senator and Lula after neither candidate secured an outright first-round victory in the accounts provided by the two sources.¹²

Runoff setting

The endorsements concentrate attention on candidates who finished behind the two finalists. Cury’s 2.89% and Caiado’s 2.18% of the first-round vote represent support now being directed toward Bolsonaro, while Santos’s 2.24% is not formally being directed to either candidate, according to the reported positions.¹²